The Long Game, Lucas Sinclair

takes a toll, my foolish pride - how long before i see the light?

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"SAM, just stay with me," Lucas begged desperately. His hands were cradling the sides of her head, trying to get to her — trying to get to her eye level — but Sam's eyes were still rolled to the back of her head. "Stay with me, okay?!"

Everyone else was turning Eddie's trailer upside down, frantically searching for a way to save Sam from the waking nightmare she was trapped in. They were all yelling at each other, because there was not a single person who wouldn't be completely destroyed if something happened to Sam Hughes.

"WE NEED TO FUCKING HURRY UP!" he heard Max yell, from somewhere further in the trailer.

"YEAH, NO SHIT!" Dustin screeched right back.

"We're trying!" Auggie desperately called from another room. "We can't find anything!"

Robin cried, "Seriously, what is all this shit?!"

"What are you even looking for?!" Eddie snapped.

And Lucas was about to lose his shit, honestly. He'd gotten better at controlling his temper over the years, but that was attributed to having Sam there to calm him down. Now Sam was gone, and the one thing he'd been fearing more than anything was playing out right before his eyes.

A furious tear fell down Lucas's face and he screamed, "FLEETWOOD MAC! GO FUCKING GET FLEETWOOD MAC!"

"WHY WOULD I HAVE FLEETWOOD MAC?!" Eddie wildly questioned from his room.

"ITS SAM'S FAVORITE ARTIST, DIPSHIT!"

Lucas never yelled at anyone like that. Ever.

But Sam was in Vecna's trance, and Eddie didn't fucking have Fleetwood Mac.

"We need real fucking music, Munson!" Steve cursed, and he hadn't been malicious like this in a while, either.

Eddie angrily bellowed, "THIS. IS. MUSIC!"

Lucas let out a small cry, almost a whimper. Hands still cupping Sam's face, he tucked her fly-away hairs behind her ears. "Stay with me, Hughes," he whispered brokenly. "Just stay with me. Please."

Sam didn't move in the slightest bit.

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Tears properly fell down Sam's face now. Everything she'd held in throughout the trance Vecna (Henry?) was putting through, flooded out of her the second Sam's mother said "Diane Reynolds" aloud. The thought was unbearable, and a part of her still didn't believe it. Diane Reynolds could be a common name, right? Maybe that wasn't Sam's mother who said it. Maybe...

But fifteen-year-old Alice looked just like Sam. But Sam never knew her grandparents on her mother's side because her mom told Sam that they were an older couple who passed before she was born. But Sam had to receive her powers from somewhere, and where else than the Creel family?

And Sam's entire life was a lie.

She wondered if her mother ever planned to tell Sam about the true origins of their family; if she never got the time to because of her death. She wondered if her dad had known, or if even Stephanie had known. Sam felt alone from all angles, and she'd never felt more like an utter imposter.